THE SUPREME COURT: Tidelands Decision

Back in 1953, Dwight Eisenhower's Republican Congress passed the Submerged
Lands Act that awarded the oil-rich "tidelands" off U.S. shores to the states
instead of the Federal Governmentjust as Ike had promised to do in his
campaign. But the law had a basic flaw. It set a three-mile limit for Atlantic and
Pacific states, yet allowed the states on the Gulf of Mexicowhich has
most of the under water oilto claim up to three leagues (10.3 miles) of
offshore land, provided that those boundaries existed "at the time such State
became a member of the...